464 ILLINOIS AND UPPER CANADA. 



and to separate the grain from the straw, who can set limits to 

 the quantity of human sustenance which Illinois is capable of 

 affording ? If ever there is such a place as the granary of the 

 world, it will be the prairies of the western United States of 

 America. 



It was difficult for me to form an opinion of the price of 

 wheat in Upper Canada when I was in the country, the ac 

 counts being so contradictory, and sometimes stated in cash, 

 and sometimes in store pay. I have stated the expenses and 

 merchants profit of sending wheat from the township of Nichol 

 to Britain at 3s. 7d. sterling per bushel, and perhaps the ave 

 rage expense of the province will exceed 3s. The wheat of 

 Upper Canada will sell as high in the London market as the 

 best English wheat. The farmer of Upper Canada must, 

 therefore, sell his wheat about 24s. a-quarter below the high 

 est London prices. The Illinois farmer has different markets 

 for his wheat, and can send it to Canada if he pleases. I have 

 no means of calculating the expense of transport from Illinois 

 to Canada, which cannot, however, be very heavy, from the 

 canals being public property, and the dues consequently mo 

 derate. The greater produce of land in Illinois will, however, 

 more than pay the expense of sending it to Canada, and I con 

 sider myself justified in saying that a farm in Illinois will at 

 all times yield more produce than one in Upper Canada, and 

 that produce realize more money. 



The prices of farm produce being high in Upper Canada 

 is disadvantageous to the labouring settler who enters on a 

 forest farm, because, being unable for several years to grow a 

 sufficiency of food for family consumpt, the dearness of what 

 he purchases exhausts his funds. So long as a farmer consumes 

 all the produce which he grows, prices do not in the least affect 

 him, and this is too often overlooked in the Canadas, where it 

 is so difficult at first to grow produce. Fresh beef is said occa 

 sionally to fetch twenty-five cents per pound at Quebec, while 

 it can be had in some parts of Illinois at three cents. The 

 settler at Quebec would feel the high price of beef a hard 

 ship, and perhaps never reap the benefit of it from the diffi 

 culty of fattening cattle in his unfavourable situation. The 

 true value of a crop is expressed by the price and quantity of 



